Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/381

 damaged, came out in the brilliant light of the afternoon sun ; and it was easy to imagine what must have been the pride felt by its founder and its designer on the day when it was finished. Four great cylinders, with the usual dividing zones of orna- mental brickwork patterns, compose the shaft ; and on the two lower and the uppermost of these drums, the diagonal or raised diamond design prevails. Two of the girdling zones are adorned by Kufic inscriptions that assign the monument to the year 605 a.h. = 1111 A.D., when Sanjar, who afterwards be- came famous as sultan of the Oxus region, was governor of Khurasan,^ thus showing that the minaret belongs to the mid- dle period of Seljuk architecture, although the name of its builder is not given.

The base from which the monument rises is a concrete ped- estal of cement and gravel about eleven feet square,^ and this plinth, in turn, rises from a large platform, ten feet high and forty feet square, which is said to owe its existence to repairs ordered by Nasir ad-Din Shah, when on his pilgrimage to Mashad in 1866.'^ The surface of the platform is tastefully paved with square bricks, and is adorned about the edges with a decorative studding of rounded brick knobs, while a dozen or more low pillars surround it. On the eastern and western sides are steps for mounting the terrace, and under it runs a passageway that is entered by doors at the four corners. Means of ascent to the minaret were provided by a flight of spiral stairs inside ; but they are now in a ruinous condition, so that I could grope only part way up in the dark, although Fraser, in 1822, managed with difficulty to reach the top, and O'Donovan repeated the performance in 1880.* Effect is added to the

1 On the date see Khanikoff, Me- » gge Yate, pp. 398-399. Nasir ad- moire, pp. 87-88, and Curzon, 1. 270. Din, Diary, p. 126, mentions the min- For Sultan Sanjar's career see Skrine aret as 'high, old, and beautiful.' and Ross, Heart of Asia, pp. 134-141, * See Fraser, p. 380; O'Donovan, London, 1899. 1. 429.

2 Compare also Bassett, p. 212, and O'Donovan, 1. 428.

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